


The Oaths We Keep

by fingerspitzengefuhl



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Ending, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Asexual Character, Bisexuality, Canon-Typical Violence, Dai-nana-han | Team 7 (Naruto)-centric, Fix-It, Fix-It of Sorts, For Want of a Nail, Gen, Hatake Kakashi is a Good Teacher, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Kakashi is trying his best, M/M, Naruto is Just Naruto, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Hatake Kakashi, Sakura is learning, Slow Build, Team as Family, author can't write children, eventual Gaara/Uzumaki Naruto, gaara is asexual, i didnt come here to play, kaguya who?, kakashi has ptsd, that alien shit makes 0 sense
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-28
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2020-09-28 06:49:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20421716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fingerspitzengefuhl/pseuds/fingerspitzengefuhl
Summary: Kakashi is in shambles with broken promises surrounding him, Naruto is in tears with nobody backing him. Kakashi decides to keep the oath he had made a long time ago and their beginning changes, as does the ending.





	1. Chapter 1

The world after October 10th disparts a bitter flavor fermenting on his tongue — though, in all fairness, the world before October 10th wasn’t much better. He wasn't alone then, at least. Now, two years and a day after October 10th, he stews in his own sweat and blood trickles down his forehead, a pitiful reminder of the wretched steady beat in his chest. He wishes he was dead more often than not.

He languishes atop his sensei's head, the only place where those dulled stone eyes can't follow him around. Supposedly, he’s supposed to feel guided by the looming presence of the Hokages. The monument doesn’t impart strength on him, rather it holds him hostage to his own guilt in the choking cinch of a noose.

He toes the edge, kicking rocks down the slope of the Yondaime’s nose. His chakra is pulled tight to his core, churning sluggishly, and he knows that if he fell it could cover his feet and latch onto the stone in a second. Still, the illusion that he could topple over and nothing could save him feels him with a despairing hope. Then his death would be an accident; then it wouldn’t be a footnote in a weekly report on the Third Hokage’s desk.

“What to do, sensei?” He hums. He knows what he should do and what he wants to do, but sometimes the lines get blurry and he thinks about what he deserves instead. “This must be my fate, ne?”

The air is silent and he is answerless. A response will not come, will never come, but he waits until sunrise anyways. It is only when the pink and orange awash his features, the coming of a new day rinsing away the remnants of yesterday’s sins, that he begins a slow descent from the mountain.

No falling today, he supposes. He hopes, in an empty defiant way, that this is his choice; he hopes, in a desperate way, that fate’s hands are idle.

The aroma of smoky incense clogs his nose as he treks through the village to his apartment, the remains of the anniversary’s service. He’s glad that he was sent on an anbu mission the past two days; avoiding the constant stone reminder is hard enough without participating in hollow rituals conjured to make the loss sting a bit less. Ruminating on it, he thinks his mission might have been orchestrated by the reigning Hokage to keep him busy and away from the proceedings. He’s half-glad and half-bitter about it.

“That’s enough of that, you beastly child.” A severe voice says in the blue of the day, echoed by the blubbering of a toddler.

Too involved in his melancholic thoughts and the anbu mask obscuring his peripheral vision, he had not noticed that he had stumbled into the hub of Konohagakure's market. Conversation bubbles around him, but the sound of the child's cries drowns all of it out. Content to ignore it, he steadfastly does not look in the direction of the voice as making eye contact with a struggling parent always demands a sympathetic response he simply can not dreg up.

The sound gets further and further away, casual conversations filling the void left by the child's cries. The serene daily life swells into his own personal bubble, a fish bowl of peace that the big bad world is kept out of, until the quiet is broken by shrill screams. His first instinct is to kill, push a kunai into a heart before one is pushed into his. For a moment, he feels stone rubble from nearby buildings digging into his skin and he is on fire. He closes his hand into a fist until fingernails draw blood and then the stones rebuild themselves, his panic fading though the back of his throat stings with bile. Vestiges of the war still lurk in the crevices of his brain; the Yamanaka head still tries to rustle him into therapy over it. He's a shinobi, though, a jounin at that. He doesn't need help.

A mob of children rushes past him, skipping and hopping to their own tunes. Following in their shadow is a screaming two year old, the shrill screams that had startled him. Around their thin wrists are bands marked with letters 'KSFY'. Konoha's Sanctuary for Youth — the orphanage.

The crying toddler stumbles on his stubby legs and face plants into the ground. The screaming intensifies.

"You are so _annoying_." A genin boy, most likely working at the orphanage as part of a mission, says in exasperation. "No wonder everyone hates you."

The genin pulls the toddler back to his feet with the gentleness of a bull in a porcelain shop. Now standing, the kid lifts his sniffling face up and everything slows down as his chest constricts.

Minato-sensei's child.

Kakashi feels something wet slide down his cheek, and he tells himself it is sweat.

* * *

It is a month before Kakashi drags up the courage to look at the face of Minato-sensei's child.

A warm night in Konoha, though most nights are warm even when the December chill descends. Civilians and shinobi alike congregate in establishments of all kinds — most are of the drinking sort, of course. Two years, two months, and five days since October 10th and everyone has moved on.

Kakashi treads on light feet into the orphanage, certainly far past the orphan's bedtimes and when most caretakers turn to booze in the lunch hall. He shuffles past a woman with premature grey hairs dozing in a cheap stiff chair and moves past several rooms stacked with beds, a pair of children nestled into each one. He follows a scent that smells like clammy skin and something distinctly Namikaze, leading him to a scuffled door surrounded by dented walls.

Minato-sensei's son is in a quaint room, possibly a pantry at one point in time. Mildew spreads in all four corners and Kakashi cuts a patch in two with a scrape of his fingernail. He inspects it carefully, for no other reason but to delay his personal mission.

He needs to do this, Kakashi realized earlier that day. Dwelling on the incident while everyone else moves on has proven detrimental in his daily life. Because of his declining performance, his anbu captain reported him to HR and now he's forced to weekly appointments with a shrink. Kakashi scowls at the thought, especially since the shrink was a Yamanaka who likes to get too handsy with his jutsu. No, Kakashi needs to move on and that is all there is to it. Minato-sensei's son would close this part of his life. Once he realizes how well-taken care of his sensei's legacy is, Kakashi can absolve himself of the guilt that haunts him every night when he can't sleep. The kid's wellbeing will prove that Kakashi's debts to his team are null and void, prove that the promises he can't keep are unkeepable.

Kakashi finally rests his hands around the thin wooden bars of the crib, peering into the bassinet cautiously as if the toddler would brandish a weapon any minute. He is sleeping, though, rather peacefully. Looking into his face is almost shocking, like he is looking at a baby Minato. A part of him wanted to run his hands through the distinct gold hair, the other part of him wanted to run in the opposite direction.

The toddler seems well enough, with pink toes and tanned skin. His stomach is plump enough, Kakashi thinks; to be quite honest, Kakashi doesn't know how plump a toddler's stomach should be, but he certainly doesn't look emaciated. Overall, a healthy child, Kakashi concludes in his head.

"I'm sorry, Minato-sensei." Kakashi says quietly into the air, daring to only brush his palm across the tips of his hair lest he wake the kid.

Then, he's swirling in blue and he feels like he is ripped back in time the day before the Kyuubi attacked. He isn’t, and he knows he isn’t because the blue eyes blink up at him and there's something in those deep eyes he never saw in his sensei's. The child stares up at Kakashi, reaching his stubby fat baby arm up so he can grasp onto the edge of the anbu mask. He pulls away the mask and Kakashi feels like he is ripping off a bandaid covering a gaping hole in his chest.

The mask slips off his face, leaving him bare.

"Doggy crying." The two year old says.

Kakashi sobs, falling to the ground with his hands gripping around the crib until his knuckles are white. All the while, the kid wobbles onto his two feet, studying the dog mask in his hand. Kakashi feels himself shaking like a leaf, and everything is crashing in on him at once. In the corners of his eyes, he sees flashes of ghosts haunting him, and he has no excuse anymore. Kakashi failed his team, he broke his promises; he should've protected Rin and he should've watched over Minato-sensei's son. Rin is dead now, and his son is neglected, no matter how much Kakashi fools himself — he's in a pantry, for fuck's sakes.

His breath is coming in such quick, stuttering gasps that his vision is tunneling (or maybe spiraling) into black and he _can't stop_.

"Doggy happy." Minato-sensei's son declares, placing the mask on top of Kakashi's head, and it startles him out of his stupor. "Doggy happy."

Kakashi wipes his tears away, and fixes his anbu mask back onto his face. "Yes, Naruto, doggy is happy."

He's not, he's really not.


	2. Chapter 2

“I didn’t do it, I swear!”

The wooden ruler falls across his knuckles with a crack. He winces, and draws his hands back from where they were splayed at the edge of the desk. The matron takes an iron grip around his wrists and moves them back into position. “Don’t lie to me, boy.”

“I’m not, you dummy.” Naruto replies doggedly, expecting the sting of the stick this time. It only serves to infuriate him even more. "I didn't put bad words on the wall!"

It isn’t fair, it isn’t fair at all. Naruto had been at the park all day long by himself and couldn't have painted on the wall in the small time frame between snack time and potty time. Not to mention, Naruto is only four years old and can’t write at all. The others have started taking their writing lessons, but Naruto is behind his peers and the teacher got so frustrated with him he kicked Naruto out of the class.

"Then why did Miori and Gen'ichi say they saw you writing on the walls?" The matron asks, eyebrows raising and in such a manner that implies she already knows the answer.

"Because they're liars. Big fat stinky liars!" _ Thwap. _Naruto’s knuckles are red enough that he thinks he might bleed if his interrogation continues. It would be easier to just admit he did it and accept his punishment, but then he’d have to concede defeat – Naruto would rather die.

"That's enough." She barks sternly, tucking the ruler into her belt and walking towards the worn chalkboard. "You will go to your room and stay there till tomorrow morning. With no dinner."

Naruto's stomach grumbles at the news and he clutches his stomach. Tears began to well under his eyes and a flush of embarrassment crawls up his neck. He didn't want to cry, not in front of this woman or anyone really. He just couldn't help it. "I hate you. I hate everyone!"

The matron just sneers and glances at the door, confident that her insubordinate charge would follow her order. Naruto does – he makes sure to slam every door and kick every piece of furniture he passes as he does so. 

After leaving a trail of destruction in his wake, Naruto sprawls across his uncomfy bed in his small unkempt room and cries himself to sleep.

An hour later, Naruto wakes with an unexpected abruptness and upon that moment a savory smell wafts across his nose. He opens his swollen eyes to a steaming cup next to his face.

That day, Naruto decides ramen will be his favorite food.

* * *

There is a disproportionate ratio between free beds and children at Konoha's Sanctuary for Youth. Kids have to double up in their small beds and some even have to triple. Naruto has always known it this way - the building teeming with life. People talk about a monster fox a lot and how it orphaned many children. No one has told him explicitly but, Naruto too, thinks his parents were killed by the big fox. Everyone else's parents died in such a way, and if it happened to everyone else it must have happened to him too. Naruto always had his own bed, though, and his own room.

In the beginning, when they changed his cradle into the customary creaky cheap beds, the other children complained about him being treated special. Naruto felt really bad, but mostly he felt alone. Sharing a bed with someone else sounds nice, he thinks, because that means he has a friend. Within a week or two, they stopped complaining. When he tried to talk to them, they gave him the cold shoulder. Having his own bed must be why they didn't like him. In his mind, there was no other explanation. 

On a sweltering afternoon, Naruto approaches the head matron. He tugs on her loose navy pants, a relic from her time as a chūnin, and waits for her to turn her attention away from her clipboard. Naruto is not typically associated with patience, bouncing on his heels restlessly, but he waits with his breath held and mouth shut. The head matron always says good behavior is awarded; being patient is good, isn't it?

"Yes, Naruto?" Her long-suffering tone drawls behind the barrier of her clipboard. He grins widely at her, because she said his name and not 'boy'' or 'brat' or any of the other substitutes the common matrons use instead. Fuyumi has always been the nicest of the matrons, though most of the other orphans dislike her due to her strict nature and surly disposition. Naruto supposes he should amend that and say Fuyumi is the nicest matron to _ him _.

"Well, I was thinking–"

"I'm sure that's a first for you. Thank you for keeping me updated on your personal growth milestones, but I have bookkeeping to get back to."

Naruto doesn’t really understand all that she just said, but that isn’t going to stop him. The only way is to go forward, after all. "Yeah, well, you're welcome, Fuyumi-sensei. Anyways, I was thinking maybe I should give up my bed so someone else can sleep in it! Then they'll like me! It's a great idea, isn't it?"

Fuyumi shoots a dry, flat look at Naruto, the metal of the clipboard reflecting in her eyes. She seems unimpressed with his proposition, and Naruto curls his shoulders forward defensively. He doesn’t like the look she is giving him, the look meaning that his wish is going to be denied and all the kids won’t like him. However, Fuyumi has always been weak to skimping corners when it came to money and allocating resources stringently - if the kid is volunteering, taking advantage of it is hardly an immoral decision (or that is her defense if she gets in trouble with the Hokage).

“Very well. I’ll have Heisuke-san move it out during his D-rank today.” Fuyumi breaks eye contact with Naruto and starts to scribble something in the margin of her papers. Naruto sits patiently, hands clasped in front of him, waiting for any kind of acknowledgement. Without pausing, Fuyumi says, “That was a dismissal, Naruto. Go along and leave me be. I don’t have time for you.”

Naruto deflates at that sentence - “I don’t have time for you” - a sentence he hears a lot from Fuyumi-sensei. She did listen to him, though, and that has to count for something. “Thanks, Fuyumi-sensei!”

He runs along, secure in the belief that come tomorrow morning the other children will want to play with him. Maybe, even, Miori and Gen’ichi will stop blaming him for things.

What Naruto didn’t account for is that, giving his bed up, also meant sacrificing his sheets and blankets. There are only so many coverings to go around and the sheets are a package deal with the mattress he surrendered. In the place his small, tiny bed had filled, Naruto is now the proud owner of a hard, cold sleeping mat that they use for naptime during lessons (lessons that Naruto is forbidden from attending). 

He shivers and shakes his way through the night and the night after that. The kids don’t treat him any better when he wakes up, either. He really wishes he could have his bed back until he sees a small girl cuddling under it with a thumb in her mouth and a bear tucked in her arm. His energy has always been boundless, but he flags a bit around noon and falls asleep in the grass of the playground with the sun on his face. His awakenings always come with a startle; one of the matrons or babysitting genin standing over him with their arms crossed and their faces pinched. 

On the third night, Naruto dreams of a dog climbing through the window and transforming into a fluffy blanket made of fur and affection. The dog holds him tightly, warming him up and stopping his shakes, rubbing his hair and keening a sad song into Naruto’s ear. Then, the dog bounds out the window on four legs, leaving a weird feeling that Naruto thinks might be love but he’s not quite sure. When he wakes, it is under a soft fleece blanket spotted with puppies and paw prints.

* * *

Lessons at Konoha’s Sanctuary for Youth start the year an orphan turns four. General education for most citizen children, with a home and a parent and maybe a pet hamster too, starts usually around six. The orphans don’t really understand why they start learning earlier and often you can find them commiserating over homework assignments and, the currency of the orphanage, stolen prefrozen cookies.

Except for Naruto, of course.

Naruto _ was _in lessons with Akimasa-sensei, often in the front of the classroom where Akimasa-sensei could keep an eye on him during the lessons. Naruto doesn’t really know why, he never really did anything worth keeping an eye on. He experienced a lot of struggle in the room — he scribbled too much in writing lessons and stumbled too much in reading lessons — and Akimasa-sensei wasn’t a very patient man despite his career path. So, Naruto was kicked out of lessons and wouldn’t be able to reenter until the next batch of four year olds start.

Miori and Gen’ichi, kids that are two years older than him and just started at the academy, both tease him because he can’t spell. They write crude words on the wall and tie up Naruto until he can read them - he never can. Sometimes his mind flip flops things and he thinks an ink stroke is in one place when it’s in another. Gen’ichi is particularly cruel because he excels at the academy and likes to practice on Naruto (like the new trap he just learned or the jutsu that makes him look like Fuyumi-sensei). 

Today, Miori is tying him up. She needs to practice her constrictor knot, she tells Naruto in a smug tone because _ she _knows what a constrictor knot is and Naruto doesn’t. Gen’ichi is reading a comic-book nearby, having done his part in setting up the trap that kept Naruto bound to the trunk of a tree. Naruto pouts because this just isn’t fair, he only wanted to go play ninja with the other kids. 

“No, no, not like that!” Gen’ichi exclaims, getting up from his spot under the tree. He gets up and impatiently shows Miori the right way to do the knot. 

“I don’t think that’s right, Gen’ichi-kun.” Miori says politely, because even when she’s being downright nasty to Naruto she keeps up her veneer of politeness.

“It is right, dumb Miori-chan.” Gen’ichi grumbles, pulling tight on the ropes and Naruto tries to kick him. The boy hums when he determines the knot satisfactory enough and Miori releases a sigh of exasperation.

“Let me go, you meanies!” Naruto yells, whacking his stubby legs against the tree trunk in hopes he can shake himself loose. 

“We will, Naruto-kun,” Miori says with a faux-sweet tone and something lurking behind her razor smile. She stands in front of Naruto, in all her brown pig-tailed glory, and taps the tips of her fingers together like a villain in the pages of Gen’ichi’s books (Naruto sneaks peeks at them sometimes, when Gen’ichi is at the Academy and Naruto is briefly unsupervised). Gen’ichi rounds the tree to stand next to Miori, short and stocky to Miori’s tall and slender. He has a thin stick in his hand and starts drawing a line of weird shapes in the dirt.

“Yeah, dumb Naruto-kun.” Gen’ichi sneers, “We’ll release you when you can read _ this _.”

It’s hiragana, Naruto realizes belatedly, and his eyes start to tear up a bit. Miori starts to snicker at the wetness spilling over his eyelashes and Naruto bites his lips hard to prevent himself from crying. He won’t let them see him cry, no he won’t. Instead, he focuses on the squiggles in the dirt that mean absolutely nothing to him - if he stares hard enough, he’s bound to figure it out, isn’t he?

“I’ll give you a hint, it rhymes with goopid and you are it.” Gen’ichi grins.

Naruto rears up in his binds, wiggling with new vigor, “I’m not goopid, you are goopid! You are goopidest goopid I’ve ever seen!”

Gen’ichi and Miori go quiet, shooting each other glances. For a second, Naruto is proud of himself. He stood up to them and shocked them to silence! Then, the duo bowl over laughing, gripping at each other’s backs to keep them upright and holding onto their stomachs like they might die from laughter. Naruto hates it, he hates that they’re laughing at him and that he did something that was laugh-worthy. The tears that he kept at bay start spilling down his cheeks and he wants to scream in frustration.

“I hate you guys! I hate all of you!” Naruto cries, pulling against his restraints.

They just laugh harder. Naruto clenches his eyes shut, squeezing them so tight he sees stars, and he hopes when he opens them, his bullies will be gone. He still hears them, laughing and taunting him; his jaw tenses and his weak baby teeth grind together.

“Is that the new _ Midori _ _ Tōrō _ comic?” Naruto’s eyes blink open at the sound of the new voice. The new tired, _ adult _voice.

A young man stands behind Miori and Gen’ichi, with the two staring starry-eyed at him. His hair is as white as Fuyumi-sensei’s shirt, which is incredibly white as she keeps it ironed and stain-free, and the only visible part of his face is one tired black eye. He’s wearing a shinobi uniform, but it’s in tatters and dried blood flakes off with every rustle of his clothes.

_ A real shinobi, _the three orphans think. The orphanage is on the outskirts of Konoha and rarely do they run into an active shinobi that is higher than genin or a noncombative-trained chūnin. The bloodied jōnin doesn’t look at them, keeping his eye on the book in his hand; the orphans are used to it and hardly notice his purposeful casualness. 

“Yeah, shinobi-san!” Gen’ichi stutters, “It is the new comic. I saved up all my chore money to buy it!”

“Mm, I see.” He doesn’t sound overly interested, but the orphans are too socially neglected by those outside the orphanage to really understand some of the social clues. 

Gen’ichi squares his shoulders back and is ready to go on a tangent about his favorite comic series - until the shinobi’s eye flickers onto Naruto’s scowling face. Gen’ichi swallows the words about to come out of his mouth. Miori’s quiet fiddling stops. Before, none of the matrons or anyone else who works at the Sanctuary stopped their tormenting, but that doesn’t mean they don’t know what they are doing is wrong. Miori and Gen’ichi know that if they were to do it to anyone else, they would get in a lot of trouble, and they can only get away with it in certain places where civilians aren’t obligated to step in. 

Naruto, on the other hand, doesn’t expect the shinobi to say anything or discourage them. No one has; they never outright allowed it, yet they turned the other cheek since they wouldn’t get in trouble for doing so anyways. The shinobi won’t step in either, probably. Once more, he is on his own. Naruto doesn’t want to look at three of them, he feels so sick to his stomach and his anger feels like poison in his blood, so he stares at the ground instead.

“Say, is that a constrictor knot?” The jōnin says and Naruto frowns. His hopes had raised a little bit, despite his pessimism. "Impressive work. Constrictor knots are hard because if you leave the ends too long, your prisoner can slip out, you know.”

“I know, shinobi-san!” Gen’ichi answers cheerfully, “The constrictor knot is an effective binding method. It is more secure than a hobble knot and one of the most difficult knots to escape from as the harsh knot can be impossible to untie once it is tightened. The most logical option to release from a constrictor knot is through cutting the rope itself.”

“Is that straight from the_ hojōjutsu _textbook?” Gen’ichi nods enthusiastically, proud to show off his skills in memorization and ass-kissery. “Well, I doubt you will have to worry about long ends, then. You two seem like very bright students."

Naruto wants to shout at him and say that they aren't bright, he's brighter. He could do a better knot and he will be even better at hiragana. Naruto will show him, and everyone else too.

Gen'ichi and Miori fawn over the jōnin as he turns and leaves, paying no mind to Naruto as they yell goodbyes and talk about how cool he was. As they are distracted, Naruto fiddles with the knot that has him strapped to the tree. It is hard because he can't see the knot behind his back, but he finds his way by feeling the ridges of rope and tracing the loops. Soon, he finds the ends of the rope and they are really long. Naruto thinks he might have a chance of escaping them, then. 

Tugging experimentally on the ends, Naruto feels a tightening sensation around his wrists and he inhales sharply. Gen'ichi and Miori are too busy shouting at each other with enthusiasm over the cool shinobi they just met. He continues to wiggle, testing the boundaries of the rope. At some point, he cinches his finger in the rope. Naruto desperately tries to wriggle his finger free, twisting it every which way to loosen it, when the rope slackens and slips to the base of the tree. Finally free! It only took him around five minutes, his bullies none the wiser.

"What–" Miori starts to say upon noticing his free figure. Naruto imagines there is more for her to say, but he doesn't intend to hear it. He bounds away from them before they can gather their bearings, and he hears Miori exclaim in the distance, "I told you it wasn't right, Gen'ichi-kun!"

Naruto knows where he's going, what he's doing. He races down the dirt roads, displacing dust and dirt clumps falling into his shoes. Naruto runs faster than he has ever run before, faster even than when he was escaping from Gen'ichi and Miori or the mean laundry lady. His lungs burn for air and he's more exhalation than he is inhalation; his shoes rub against his shin and toes with blisters forming under the friction.

In the distance, Naruto sees the jōnin strolling forward. A book is in one hand and the other is stuffed into his pocket. The way his shoulders slouch and his head is ducked, Naruto thinks he must be oblivious to everything around him.

"You!" Naruto bellows, skidding to a halt meters from the jōnin. "I have something to say to you!"

The jōnin glances over his shoulder, his head turning towards Naruto before the rest of his body does. He points at himself lazily, fingers curled and eye half-lidded. "Me?"

"Yeah, you!" Naruto is out of breath. Still, he storms on like he always does. "I will be the best shinobi ever! Better than Gen'ichi and Miori and-and all those other kids. My knots will be better and the ends won't be too long and I'll learn how to read good. You got that?"

The shinobi's posture doesn't change, yet Naruto feels a shift in the air. An eye once glazed over is sharp and narrowed, a black flint stone stare piercing through his flesh and seeing his soul. 

"The best you say?" He hums to Naruto's declaration.

Naruto hastens to confirm, "Yeah, the best! The bestest best!"

"Well," the shinobi scratches his covered chin with his finger and the fabric slightly shifts with each scrape of his nail (Naruto wishes he could see under that mask so, so bad), "the best shinobi in the whole village is the Hokage. Are you going to be the Hokage, then?"

Naruto having the same position as the old grandpa that visits him on slow sundays when the day is not too cold and not too warm? Naruto's face pinches because jiisan isn't cool, he's old and boring and all he does is smoke from his pipe and make Naruto finish puzzles with him. Naruto hates puzzles. How can the Hokage be the best if jiisan is the Hokage? 

The jōnin grows visibly uninterested in the conversation as Naruto thinks, his eye returning to the orange book at hand and he goes to leave.

He can't leave, Naruto screams in his head, because he's going to be the best and that dumb jōnin needs to know that. If the best is the Hokage, then Naruto will become the new Hokage!

"I will!" Naruto hollers. Wind gusts through the trees, shaking leaves and branches, and it's just a coincidence but Naruto hopes that the universe is telling him it heard. "I will become the Hokage, just you wait and see! When I'm Hokage, I'll –I'll kick your ass, too. You got that?"

The air is thin with fragile silence; one wrong step and it'll shatter. Shinobi always stand so tall, even the genin that come to the orphanage for their missions. This jōnin stands tall, too, despite the way his body relaxes like a ragdoll and his posture is way worse than Naruto's. (Naruto has absolutely terrible posture, too, and Fuyumi-sensei makes him walk along lines with books on his head until his spine hurts.) Behind his thin obscure mask, the shinobi smiles. Naruto can only tell its a smile because his cheeks lift and the one showing eye closes tightly.

The jōnin opens his mouth and Naruto leans forward like he's looking down a long, tall slope with hands at his back waiting to push him when he's least expecting it. "Got it."

Naruto expected more and less all at the same time, so he settles for pleased. When it occurs to him to stop grinning goofily and respond, the shinobi is gone. 

That night he dreams of the dog, again. He doesn't often dream of the dog, except every so often when he slinks into the room through the window. The dog is more like a cat on the prowl like that, though Naruto is too tired in his dream to say so to the dog. 

The dog is big, bigger than Naruto twice over, or at least that's what he sees. He never sees the body of the dog, just the white face that glows when the moonlight bounces off of it in such a way that shadows play across the dog's face. It's a bit confusing, and Naruto wakes up sometimes and doesn't quite believe it's a dog at all. 

His dream is vivid this time. Usually it feels like everything is going in and out, exhaustion coloring the edges of his mind; this time it's different. He sees it crystal clear – the dog slinks into his bedroom, cloaked in a hushed whisper and a gift in his hand (there is always a gift in his hand, the gifts aren't very impressive, but it's a gift and, most importantly, it's a gift _ for Naruto _). Naruto tosses and the dog stops, the haunting face poised over his tired form on the cold sleeping mat.

"Is that for me, doggy?" Naruto mumbles, mouth dry and words syrup thick in his throat. The dog doesn't answer, just bows to the floor and slides a small book towards Naruto's cheek. He squints at it and wants to say that it's a bad gift because Naruto can't read, but he's scared the dog will take the gift away and it's _ his _gift. Naruto always cherishes the dog's gifts. "Thank you, doggy."

Naruto wants to sob and cry into the canine's embrace. He doesn't think the dog will appreciate his tears making his fur coat sopping wet, though, so he sniffles instead and pats the cover of the book. The dog sits quietly with him, listening to Naruto's soft whimpers, and eventually Naruto drifts to another dream about funky hats and talking trees.

In the morning, he wakes to his face pressing into the cover of a book and the feeling of grooves indented into his temple. The cover of the book is red and squishy, with a weird collection of cartoons on it – a tiger, a fruit, a baby, and a bunch of other mismatched things. He can't read the title, it just looks like scribbles to his eye, but when he opens it up he sees images with the word written neatly under. A learning book, he deduces, after flipping through it page by page.

Naruto studies it diligently, even though he gets awfully bored sitting still for so long, and he leaves for lunch thinking his dream isn't quite a dream at all.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kakashi is tired, Naruto is determined.

Learning to read is hard, even with his new handy-dandy book. Well, it’s not that new compared to what others’ would consider a new gift. Doggy gave him the book eight months ago, and Naruto had since seen: a birthday, a _ sakura _festival, and a surly talking dog. What he hadn’t seen, though, was his doggy.

Part of Naruto was scared for doggy, because maybe he had gotten hurt and no one was there to help him. The bigger part, the aching deep hole in his stomach, said doggy abandoned him like everyone else. The thought left Naruto as grumpy as the dog (whom he encountered once, on the outskirts of the orphanage, grumbling about babysitting for a ‘scamp’). Either way, he wasn’t going to let his gift go to waste!

At every chance he had, Naruto sequestered himself in the deep bowels of the orphanage playground and went over the book cover-to-cover. Naruto was determined; even though his head hurt when he stared too hard at the slashed lines and his peers went out of their way to kick up the sand where he was practicing, he wouldn’t be deterred. To help along his goal, Naruto had stolen into the orphanage classrooms late into the night to read the books under moonlight, but everything was spoiled for him eventually. Akimasa-sensei clued in to someone breaking into the classrooms; even though nothing was taken or damaged, the caretakers had taken more precautions to keep the rooms unaccessible. No one directly blamed Naruto; Akimasa-sensei still gave him suspicious looks anyways.

So, here he is. If the matrons found out, Naruto would tell them that they were the ones who had driven him here. They were the reason Naruto currently stands on a busy Konoha street with bustling shops on every which way of him. 

To Naruto, it is like stepping into an entirely new world. The orphanage sometimes took excursions into the village, letting the children see civilization beyond the dumpy plot of land the Youth Sanctuary sat on. This isn't a neighborhood on the outskirts of the village, though — this is the heart of Konohagakure. A beating heart that pulsated to the rhythm of the villagers' breaths, thrumming particularly loud during the afternoon traffic (15:00 to 17:00) and during Happy Hour (21:00 to 22:00). 

Everyone is so vivid and, with each shoulder that jostles Naruto, he discovers a new shade of color. Children his age are running zig zags across the street, fond parents gazing over them while chittering with their friends. 

“This is what I’m missing out on…” Naruto breathes to himself, the thought so painful in its yearning he had to speak it to the world. His eyes well up with water and, as if they can subconsciously sense a sobbing orphan, the villagers give him a wide berth. Embarrassed, Naruto buries his eyes into his arm.

“You know, only weirdos talk to themselves.” The self-assured voice came from before him, but Naruto keeps his face buried in his sleeves.

There’s silence, enough silence that Naruto is convinced they have left. He’s thankful, because he doesn’t want anyone to see him cry like a little baby, but he’s also saddened. Naruto feels so _ alone _.

A light touch to his hair, slender calloused fingers tousling through it. The touch is a surprise, so unexpected that Naruto accidentally hits his own nose when he startles. His arms unfold and his vision becomes unobstructed. Everything is blurry with salty tears and he only sees pale blonde blending into dark pink. 

“If you keep crying, your eyes will start to hurt.” The blur says, reaching out to him and wiping his tears away with a soft, silky cloth. “It’s a good thing I always keep my handkerchief on me!”

With the tears gone, Naruto can see her properly now. Everything about her seems pale, but so vivid. Her short blonde hair almost matches her pale silky skin, yet her sky blue eyes jump out against everything else. 

After wiping away his tears, she sways back onto her heels and places a fist against a jutted out hip, “I’m Yamanaka Ino!”

“Hi, I-” His voice comes out weak and he hates it; clearing his throat, he tries again, “Hi, Ino.”

The air is awkward for a moment, Ino looking at Naruto like she is expecting something and Naruto is struck dumb by the whole affair. 

“Ino, hurry up! We’re going to be late.” A new voice calls out.

Behind Ino’s shoulder, he sees two kids hovering and looking increasingly restless while they wait for their friend. One looks bored, hands in his pocket and dry eyes staring towards the sky. The other has a hand shielding his face as he looks towards Ino and Naruto, his other hand wrapped tightly around a crisp slip that Naruto thinks might be money.

“Well, are you just going to stare at me all day?” Ino huffs, bringing Naruto’s focus back to her as she, seemingly, ignores her friends. “Or are you going to tell me your name?”

A well of giddiness swells in his stomach; someone wants to know his name. Someone _ asked _ him for his name! That meant she liked him, didn’t it? Could they possibly be friends, then? If she thought Naruto was cool, then she’d definitely want to be his friend.

Naruto straightens his back and grins widely, “O’course I’m going to tell you my name! I’m Uzumaki Naruto, maybe you’ve heard of me. I’m pretty important.”

When Ino looks at him, all unimpressed and nonchalant, Naruto clears his throat and shrugs his shoulders like he couldn’t care less if she heard of him or not. It’s something he saw one of the genins do when they were fixing the broken floorboards for a mission. 

“Well, _ I’ve _never heard of you before, so you probably aren’t that important.” Ino replies smugly. She crosses her arms over her chest as if she is the sole determiner in an individual’s importance. Naruto bristles, partly because her tone reminds him of Gen’ichi, but mainly because he feels embarrassed. 

“Yeah, well maybe you haven’t heard of me because you aren’t important enough, dattebayo!”

Ino scowls, “What did you sa-”

“Ino, we’re going to leave you.” The lackadaisical boy from before comes up from behind Ino, willfully ignorant of the beginning squabble before him. “You’re taking too long.”

“I was done here, anyways!” Ino sniffs, turning on her heel, “The last time _ I _do anything nice for someone.”

Her friend just sighs. 

Naruto deflates at the view of their backs slowly moving further away and he wishes that they would turn around, ask him if he wants to come along. In the long run, it makes sense that he would blow it, Naruto thinks. He always does, somehow. 

As he looks in their direction, he sees a familiar lean body ambling across the street. Unbidden, driven by impulsivity, Naruto calls out, "Hey! It's you!"

The jounin didn't deign to give him a morsel of acknowledgement. 

This is twice that Naruto's pride has taken a hit, and he could feel the embarrassment and frustration boiling into anger. His fists clench at his sides, fingernails pricking his hand until it stings. Naruto tries to think soothing thoughts; thoughts of warm sunny days on the playground, learning a new word in the musty classrooms, the rare occasion when Gen'ichi lets him peek at his comic book collection. All he sees, though, is split popsicles in fathers' and sons' hands, the snooty point of a blue-eyed girl's nose, and the strong, yielding back of a certain shinobi.

He thinks, but not before he acts, and Naruto is already running when his mind forms the idea of yelling at this jounin to prove to him once and for all that Naruto is _ good enough _. The shinobi must know he's running after him because he starts bouncing from ground to roof to ground again only in the way a shinobi can. It's frustrating, how fast he is, and it fuels Naruto to run faster.

Legs aching and thighs burning, Naruto thinks he might have him finally in his grasp. The past ten minutes the shinobi had been flagging and he had jogged into an alley. Naruto rounds the corner, and in the darkness of the shadowed alley, Naruto can see the outlines of a man.

"I got you now!" Naruto shouts, nosediving towards the figure until his arms wrap tightly around and his nose is buried into prickly thin lengths of straw. "W-what?"

The daylight sun drifts and the shadows shift, revealing to Naruto the strawman lying underneath him with a stupid face doodled on it and a note pinned to its chest. Grumpily, Naruto rips the note off and attempts to read it. It takes him longer than he had hoped, but soon he is able to read:

"BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME"

"Ugh!" Naruto grunts, ripping up the paper and throwing the pieces to the ground. He stares at the small scrapes for a minute, before ducking down again and gathering up the pieces. Littering is wrong, after all.

* * *

He is being followed _ again _. Kakashi sighs when he feels Naruto dogging his steps, trying to keep up with his twists and turns through Konoha. Honestly, Kakashi is surprised his little five year old feet can keep up with his long strides.

After his months-long mission, Kakashi just wanted to make his 'I'm Still Alive' rounds before curling under a blanket and reading Icha Icha. Knowing that a child, the child of his dead mentor nonetheless, is following him somehow seems to sap the last iota of energy he has.

He swings by an outside restaurant, on good intel that Gai is supposed to be here. It's hard to miss the eyesore of a man, chattering the ears off of some poor waitress who looks more overcome with surprise than irritation, so far. Kakashi didn't smile, that would be a silly thing to do, but his eyes soften slightly and he sticks a hand in his pockets to visit his best friend (which he’ll go to the grave before admitting).

“Gai,” he says, exhaustion edging but not quite seeping into his voice, “why don’t you just give her your order, ne?” 

It’s gentle when he says it, a suggestion rather than a snide quip. Gai knows that, knows he’s trying to be helpful because sometimes Gai has trouble reading social cues (and sometimes Kakashi gets stuck in his head, and Gai is there wiping his forehead down and whispering in his ear that it’s a promising youthful day today).

“My sincere apologies!” Gai exclaims, standing up to bow to prove how genuine he is. The woman would have known anyways, because Gai is the type to wear his emotions on his sleeve. He’s never been an infiltrator, like Kakashi, he’s always been on the lines with his friends, watching them die around him as he mercilessly pushes their point. 

Kakashi wants to vomit, and then wants to sleep for days. His mission was long, taxing, and his hands quiver when he sits with his thoughts on what he had to do. Because he had to do it, it’s his job. 

“- and some miso soup for my friend here, please!” Kakashi smiles tightly, part genuine because Gai remembers his favorite and part forced because he misses his bed. “My eternal rival! How are you?”

“Fine.” Kakashi replies, not intending to be short, just preferring to not expand on everything that happened (the blood he spilled, the way their eyes bulged after dying, and the smell of something that only another shinobi knows of). Gai doesn’t ask questions, he rolls with the punches.

“Well, I have devised a new contest for us!” Gai huffs proudly, “Though, I am not sure you will be up for the challenge!”

He’s too tired to compete with Gai, but he prepares to do it anyways - halfheartedly, like he always does. The simple challenges, the times they play rock-paper-scissors and race up the Hokage monument, are taken upon reluctantly because he couldn’t bear to crush Gai’s spirit. It is when they are on a mission together, fighting side by side and counting bodies, that Kakashi’s blood really starts pumping.

He’s just about to tell Gai that it will have to wait until tomorrow, that he’s tired and has to still report to the Hokage, when he sees a speck of orange out of the corner of his eye. 

Naruto jumps onto their table with everything he has in his short stubby five year old legs and stands tall, head held proudly as he raises a finger at Kakashi.

“You, one-eye, are gonna teach me to be a shinobi!” Naruto declares for all of the restaurant to hear.

Everyone in the restaurant pauses, glancing in their direction. When they see the glint of the metal of their hitai-ate, though, they turn away, mildly unimpressed but unsurprised. Gai doesn’t show any outward surprise, hiding how flabbergasted he is for once behind a confused smile. Kakashi wants to facepalm over the entire situation.

Is this what Minato-sensei would have wanted? For him to teach his runt, raise him into a fine shinobi to carry on his legacy? The thought pains him more than anything else, the idea of seeing Naruto everyday with his mother's face and father’s hair. A vivid recollection of his failures held behind ignorant blue eyes. He has to say no, he can’t do it. It doesn’t matter if Minato-sensei would have wanted him to, Minato-sensei is dead and they all left him alone. He-

Gai thumps the table, enthused, “Yosh! Looks like my cool rival now has a youthful disciple! I will not be outdone, I shall get one of my own!”

“Gai, wait-” Kakashi is too late, his friend has taken off leaving only a plume of dust behind him. The kid is still looking at him, arms crossed and a challenging look on his face that leaves Kakashi slightly intimidated (mostly because that look on a child means nothing good, not because he thinks Naruto is a _ real _threat).

“D’you hear me, one-eye?” Naruto asks, voice pitched as low as a five year old can pitch it. “You managed to get away all day! _ I _wanna be able to do that! Then Fuyumi-sensei can never catch me!”

“Uh, who -”

“I’ll be the best shinobi there is! I’ll get my head on that thing, too!” Naruto continues, his eyes growing distant with ambition.

“The monument?”

“Yeah, the monment!”

“If that’s wha - wait, stop, no!” Kakashi doesn’t shout, but he lays his hands down on the table and stands to his full height. Naruto blinks bewildered at the firm voice the jounin uses. “I am not training you, kid.”

“You told me to become the hokage!” Naruto replies, incensed, “How ‘m gonna do that all alone?”

He has a point, Kakashi concedes. Still, he refuses to waste his time on training a brat, even if it’s his sensei’s, and he’s definitely not going to get roped up in this. Kakashi already made a mistake, posing as this Doggy figure to Naruto. He can’t afford to let Naruto get attached to him, everything he touches turns to ashes.

“Hey!” Naruto’s voice brings him back to the present, “Are you listening?”

“No.” Kakashi says truthfully and simply. Naruto sputters in response. “Look, kid, I don’t have time for this, go play somewhere else.”

Kakashi gets up to leave, determined to go in the opposite direction of where Gai had sprinted off to. He couldn’t handle anymore of this silly disciple talk, it is ridiculous. Kakashi, with an apprentice? Others would die before they believed it happened.

“Fine, then!” Naruto shouts at his back, “I’m gonna kick your ass! And when I do, you’ll have to train me!”

“Watch your language, kid.” Kakashi replies casually, not bothering to turn around, and pulls his Icha Icha book out. He has done enough socializing for the week, he’ll use a good bit of his vacation days hiding in his room, he thinks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to say, sorry for the wait. I am a college student, but also I am in general a really slow writer. I hope everyone stays safe with everything going on!


End file.
